


Coolk1ds In Lockers

by PickledDeath



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bullying, Gen, Post-Sburb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2012-10-04
Packaged: 2017-10-26 04:08:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PickledDeath/pseuds/PickledDeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Coolkids don’t get shoved in lockers,’ you think with venom as you continue to shove ineffectually against the metal door holding you snugly in your ass scented box.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a Request Fill [[link]](http://captchalogue.livejournal.com/1365.html?%20thread=1932629#t1932629) "even though Dave is such a COOLK1D, he has to deal with a lot of bullying at one point (for whatever reason) before the whole sburb thing. how does he deal with that? can his Internet friends tell that something's up? give me a lot of hurt and maybe some comfort too, anon."

‘Coolkids don’t get shoved in lockers,’ you think with venom as you continue to shove ineffectually against the metal door holding you snugly in your ass scented box.

You are Dave Strider and, despite being one of the “Heroes of Legend”, you still find yourself reduced to these slights every day. Loathe to violate your own ironically ‘knightly’ morals, you are unable to fight back and can only allow the atrocities to continue. Oh, when will the horror end!

You have been missing Houston more and more lately, which is something you never thought you would be able to admit to yourself.

After the game, Bro had made a sudden move from downtown Houston to Pasadena. He had never really explained it, muttering about heat levels and the general tax situations in Harris County. He had bought a really shitty fixer-upper on the far west side of the city, almost in South Houston. The house had three bedrooms, two baths, and (despite being the smallest house in the entire area) was still way too big for the both of you.

If the house wasn’t awkward enough (no matter how much you shift around your stuff, your room still looks bare), school was much worse.

As you try your best to hold your breath, preferring the spinning sensation of asphyxiation to the rotten smells of whatever strange body soaked clothes have taken up residence in your locker, you try to remember the ridiculously stupid train of events that lead to this day to day torture.

As you remember, it started in homeroom. They were so old school in Sean Royburn High School that you were actually asked to come to the front of the class and introduce yourself. Which you did with an exceedingly chill, “ ‘Sup.” Your classmates had seemed unimpressed, but that was okay. You were also unimpressed by them.

While you were moving to seat yourself firmly in the back of the class, the nice young teacher with the huge rack stopped you with a hand on your elbow. “David, dear,” she drawled, “You’ll have to take your sunglasses off. No glasses inside, school rules.”

It was very hard for you to keep your mouth from opening while you groped around in your usually overflowing vocabulary for a string of words that would make her take back that order. Coming up blank and not really wanting to make the wrong impression, you recall nodding coolly and continuing to the back of the room. You quietly took off your shades, glancing up only to see the happy smile of the homeroom teacher whose name you couldn’t remember.

You didn’t like not having your shades. Your face felt naked. In the back of your mind, a little voice nagged that you would soon have to deal with a lot of dumb-ass questions about your eye color that you had no interest in answering (“Iron deficiency, man. Yeah, I know, it’s a very rare condition.”) But, though you were loathe to admit it to yourself, you really just wanted to quietly merge into your new school without any fuss and continue your life where you left off as much as possible. So, you were willing to leave your aviator shades in your backpack.

Nobody noticed during homeroom. Nobody noticed during the class change. Nobody noticed during English and Spanish class. It wasn’t until Gym class that the shit finally hit the proverbial fan.

It was field hockey, which was not your favorite sport, but hey. You were Dave Strider and you were a lot of things, but physically awkward was not one of them.

You got a really good game going, the two or three guys from the field hockey team quickly separating themselves from the pack to really give you a challenge. It was fun and you enjoyed the exercise after the stress of your early morning classes. There were other guys horsing around in the far reaches of the field, but they rarely got the puck.

It was only when you were feeling relaxed and in your element that shit went down. One of the guys who had been hanging back and enjoying smacking his friends in the shins with his stick had the puck fly straight for him. You, being the dashing young fellow that you are, went right for the steal. It wasn’t hard to duck under his wildly flailing stick.

For just a moment as you moved in to snatch the puck away from your classmate’s ineffectual slapping, your eyes met. And, he screamed.

“Gah! What the fuck is wrong with your fucking eyes?” the teenager screeched as he fell backwards on his ass, his arm half raised as if he was expecting you to hit him with your stick.

You could only stand there and stare down at him, your poker face so easily holding its hallowed place across your features. Slowly, everyone on the field began to stop and stare, muttering between one another as what happened was relayed back and forth.

The coach quickly broke in and got everyone moving again. But, it was too late. The stares had started. And, they wouldn’t stop any time soon.

\-  turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  tentacleTherapist [TT] –

TG: sup   
TT: Dave, I’m surprised.   
TT: It usually doesn’t take you so long to bother me on AMC’s Alfred Hitchcock night.   
TG: yeah well you know how it is   
TG: just couldnt scrape the bitches off me   
TG: it was just all like bitches to the left and right of me   
TG: wanting all my strider juices and I just had to tell those bitches   
TG: whoa   
TG: step off   
TG: i have a serious date with my ecto-sis that needs some doing   
TT: First of all, Dave, I’m flattered that you are willing to scrape young harlots from your soft undercarriage out of consideration for our weekly movie night.   
TT: Secondly, Dave, that was a very weak lie fraught with sarcasm and cynicism.   
TG: fuck i forgot you can smell that shit like sharks sniff out blood in chum infested waters   
TT: Quite.   
TT: A few painfully long years of living with Mom have sharpened my senses enough to cut through your thick veneer of coolk1d charm.   
TT: So, what kept you?   
TG: oh you know the usual   
TG: detention late buses and possibly getting stuffed in a locker for an hour or two to be left out by a very awkward janitor   
TT: Ha-ha, Dave.   
TG: …   
TT: Oh, dear. You were serious.   
TT: Dave, are you saying to me that, despite the thickly set expression of nonchalance you have cultivated, you are actually being bullied at school?   
TG: dont worry about me and my broken selfesteem   
TG: you dont have to act all concerned sis   
TG: ill be okay   
TG: so tone down the concern youre smothering me   
TT: My apologies.   
TT: It just seems so unlikely for this to happen, for all the effort you make to fit into a preset definition of cool.   
TG: i am so offended right now.   
TG: never can i escape the evils of bullying   
TG: straight from school into the terrifying land of the cyberbully   
TG: i may need to take up making shitty youtube videos of me butchering popular hits and gain fifty pounds.   
TT: I deeply appreciate your grasp of sarcasm, Dave, and apologize for my frosty reception of your problems.   
TT: But, on a more serious note, are you okay?   
TG: what   
TG: of course im fine   
TG: there may be some dicks at school   
TG: but its not like i cant handle myself

You are loath to admit it, but you’re pretty sure you can’t handle yourself quite as well as you assured Rose. The bruises that litter your body just seem to keep increasing. The itching healing process bothers you a lot less than the reminder that you’re being pushed around by kids that would be in pieces on the floor, if you were of a different mind set.

But, a lot more than the physical bullying, the emotional toll of being looked at as a freak by all of your contemporaries is starting to play with your head. Your natural confidence has been waning and most of what you do is just bluster anymore. You’ve begun to lose interest in things you once found fun. You haven’t updated Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff in what is approaching a year. More and more, the negative attention is starting to break you down and you feel as if there’s little you can do to stop it. Your own act of indifference can only do so much.

You can’t bring yourself to tell Bro or any of the teachers at the school. Not to mention that the teachers seem to be aware of it already, though at a general loss as to what to do about it. Your internet friends, your Heroes of Legend bros, are great, but you know they can’t do much for you other than offer their condolences and comfort.

So, you mostly just bottle it up and keep it to yourself.

And keep assuring yourself that it’s only three more years until you graduate.

Just three more years.


	2. Chapter 2

You are Dave Strider and the pussy punk pacifism crap has gotten old very fast. Faster than the decline of Vin Diesel’s acting career after the widespread distribution of Fast and Furious. You have long passed the stage of refining your ability to move above the level of your tormentors. Your ability to pity yourself and submit gracefully to the bullying has buckled under your intense swell of machismo at being made to submit and feel small. You are feeling pretty sure that you are teetering dangerously close to the point of collapsing in the next face you see with your fist. And, that worries you just a little bit. You’ve never been one to lose your cool.

You come home and Bro’s not there. It’s normal. He’s probably busy. He’s been busy ever since you’ve moved. An itching, scratching little voice in the back of your head comments that he’s been busy trying to keep busy ever since The Game ended, but you swat that voice away. Bro’s problems are not your problems and vice versa. His absence doesn’t bother you, or so you tell yourself.

When you get home from another exhausting day at school, there’s a box waiting on the kitchen table that has seen better days. The corners made of cardboard have already accordioned with the force of the abuse it withstood at the post office’s hands. Thankfully, whoever sent it (one Johnathan A. Egbert) cocooned the small cardboard box in so much masking tape that you despair that you might never get it open.

You tuck the parcel under your arm, stopping momentarily to grab a Lunchable from the fridge, before moving down the hall towards your bedroom.

There’s a huge oak tree outside your window and you can hear sparrows singing in the boughs and feel the warmth of the last rays of the sun on your skin as it slants through your window. Your new home is peaceful, you can give it that.

When you sit on the edge of your bed, it bends and sinks under your weight. You wonder idly if normal beds with headboards, footboards, and frames sink the same way the mattresses that you throw on your floor and call a bed do. But, that is silly whiny sissy talk and you are already quite fed up with that.

After retrieving some manner of bladekind (a broken kitchen knife) from your hash map modus, you start to work on the box. You’re half-expecting some kind of booby trap from the pranking master himself. So, you’re surprised when you finally pry open the cardboard flaps of the box, pull away some crumpled paper, and open a little white envelope to find the most ridiculous pair of glasses you have ever seen. What the fuck, John?

\-  turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  ectoBiologist [EB] TG: what the fuck john   
EB: you got my package?!   
TG: what the fuck john   
EB: you got my paaaaaaaackage!   
TG: stop that   
TG: youre insane if you think this pair of ...   
EB: the best glasses you’ve ever seen?   
TG: ridiculously horrendous …   
EB: the most hip of the hipster hip?   
TG: cornea impaling …   
EB: pretty much the most heart warming gift you’ve ever gotten?   
TG: sad excuse for a facial accessory.   
EB: aw!   
TG: dude theyre hideous   
EB: but, you like them, right?   
TG: are you kidding, these have to be the most ironic eyewear i have ever been privy to hold in my hands   
EB: win!   
EB: are you going to wear them to school and show them off to all your admirers?   
EB: well?   
EB: are you?   
EB: daaaaaaaave, hello?   
EB: are you pooping?   
TG: damn you caught me man   
TG: just dropping the kids off at the pool   
TG: anyway check this out   
\- file: kim-jong-jackie.jpg -   
EB: what?!   
EB: Jackie Chan is dead?!   
EB: noooooooo! dave, why?!

Jackie Chan wasn’t dead and you weren’t going to wear John’s stupendously stupid glasses to school, though you could easily remember a time when even the threat of seeing Bea Arthur naked wouldn’t have stopped you from parading proudly around Houston with said shades. You felt yourself resenting your classmates even more with this wondrous gift in front of you, yet out of your reach.

You didn’t belong to them and they didn’t have the right to tear you down like they did. You refused to even think of the names they called you and the things they would snicker behind your back. But, somehow, the words stuck. They stung and wiggled their way under your skin to live in the soupy front part of your brain. Every time you would try to be yourself, one of those prickly words or phrases would drift in front of your confidence and remind it why it was so small in the first place.

“Fuck," you grunted at your ceiling as you thought of just how few options you really had in your misery.

You could possibly ask Bro to let you homeschool. Even the word scraped against your skin in a bad way, tasting like retreat. You really didn’t want to do that. You doubt that Bro would bat an eyelash, but that didn’t make you want to give in any more.

No. It was time to stand up for yourself.

A small voice (the same one that had reminded you of Bro’s true purpose in his absence) spoke up against such an idea, but you squashed the voice before it could make a squeak.

It was time for the shit to stop.


	3. Chapter 3

You are Dave Strider and you are fucking cool as shit in your gay ass glasses. Despite the fact that you can barely see through the plastic slats that make up the faux glass of said glasses, you have been keeping your swagger slick and steady. If you could see the bitches, you are sure that you would be witnessing them tripping all over themselves as they run to the bathroom to wring out their soaking wet panties.

The return of your overbearing confidence is helping you to not turn around and hide in a supply closet, but it’s not enough to make you completely oblivious to the side long glances that are being slid your way. Even the stupid plastic shades can’t stop you from catching the snickers and giggles as you walk by.

Oh, well. That’s actually the kind of reaction that these ridiculous glasses are supposed to evoke, anyway. Very few teachers have the giant manly cojones that you do, so very few make any sort of comment about your ridiculously fresh new face accessory. A few do ask you to take them off, school policy. To which you coolly reply that without your dope ass eye-wear, your cool may plummet with the oppressive temperature. You could go into cool shock. You might start foaming string cheese from the mouth and develop braces. No one wants that. None of the teachers bring up your glasses after this eloquent retort.

The day goes well. As well as you could have possibly expected, anyway. Laughter follows you down the hall, but you feel (especially as the day wears on) like it has become less abrasive and more inclusive. A few guys even clap you on the back and compliment your shades. Completely ironically, of course. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

It isn’t until the final bell rings and you twist your way through the crowds of stampeding adolescents to your locker that the shit finally starts to smell. A handful of guys (as big and wide as bulls and about as intelligent) walk up to you in basic West Side Story formation. This being the biggest one in front with the lackeys fanning out behind. You are not completely unfamiliar with their type. You’ve lived in Texas your whole life, after all. They are the type of boys who wear overalls, trucker hats, and croon Kenny Chesney until the cows come home, but have probably never touched a chicken in their life. They are more likely to push over a cow than to milk one. The irony is not lost on you, but the fact that they don’t do it for irony’s sake totally ruins it.

“Hey, fag!” the biggest one yells. He says it way too loud and mocking, like he’s trying making sure that the rest of the stragglers in the hall hear him. “What the fuck are these?” he asks, reaching out to pluck your glasses off your face.

You immediately lean out of the way. “Fuck off,” you snap.

You immediately realize this was probably the wrong way to go. You probably should have wrapped incomprehensible words around them, confused and misdirected them the way you had your teachers. They probably would have hit you anyway, but at least you wouldn’t have had to macho pose.

“What the fuck did you say to me, you little fag?” the big one spits, puffing up to his biggest size and stepping into your space.

And, your day was going so well.

“Oh, I apologize,” you say from where you’re still kneeling on the floor, glancing up over the top of your rainbow vomit shades to stare up the kid’s nose. “That’s not what I meant to say. I meant to ask if you don’t have better ways to spend your precious few brain cells. Don’t you, like, have a stuffed pig to fuck or something?”

You see his muscles tense before he even lifts his arm You’re already two feet to the left when he lunges down, throwing his whole body into a punch that only meets with empty air.

The tussle immediately becomes a mess of ill-coordinated limbs flying for you. But, these buffoons are slow, way too slow. They would put any imp to shame. Within moments, you have them smacking, punching, and kicking each other until they’re all crying, heaving, whining messes. You feel pretty accomplished. Until you hear the vice principal.

Good thing you haven’t seen Bro in days.

* * *

It’s three hours later when you finally get home.

The first half hour was spent getting yelled at, then lectured by the vice principal. The second half-hour (after a counselor came in to tell him that she believes you might have been bullied and the secretary said she couldn’t contact your guardian) was spent with the vice principal trying to gently tell you that violence is not how you solve problems and that you should have talked to a teacher if you were having problems with other students. He then set you up to meet with said counselor once a week with firm instructions to make sure you show up, lest you be faced with harsher disciplinary action.

You don’t bother to tell him that they attacked you first. You fought them (while, admittedly, not laying a hand on them) and find counseling a fitting punishment. You will most certainly find it more punishing than any kind of detention or suspension.

The last two hours are spent with you sitting in the receptionist area eating cookies the nurse made while they frantically try to contact Bro. Unfortunately, you don’t really have any leads to give them. You make no secret of the fact that you haven’t seen him in days. The sympathetic looks they give you are just another way of sticking it to Bro for being especially crappy since The Game ended.

Eventually, they feel that they can no longer keep you there (they’ve already been there two hours past the time they were meant to leave) and allow you to go home, locking the school doors behind you.

The walk home is lonely, even though you feel even better about yourself. Even though you are beginning to like yourself again, you are worried about tomorrow. After all, the powers that be have already made it abundantly clear that they believe you to be an arrogant little asshole and are hell bent on knocking you down a peg. Consider yourself knocked, young man!

Yet, you and your silly asshole ways end up with you always trying to come out on top. You feel this can only end in disaster. You suppose that only tomorrow will tell.


	4. Chapter 4

\-  gardenGnostic [GG] began pestering  turntechGodhead [TG] -

GG: dave ~   
GG: dave!   
GG: dave dave dave dave dave!   
GG: dave!!   
TG: oh my god jade calm your tits   
GG: oh dave! i’m glad i got a hold of you!   
GG: i have the most awesome thing to show you! X)   
TG: geez jade   
TG: what is it   
TG: dont leave me in suspense   
TG: im about to bust a nut with the intensity of the suspense   
TG: ouch   
TG: ouch jade my nuts   
TG: ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch   
TG: oh shit theyre busted   
TG: what have you done to the world jade   
TG: how will the future survive without my wondiferous gonads to swell the gene pool with my rad virility   
TG: youve committed a travesty harley   
TG: one which can only be told as being heinous and cruel to the human race as a whole   
GG: geez dave calm down!   
\- file: CUPCAKES!! -   
TG: oh crap jade   
TG: i think i just got a totally unironic tear in my totally ironic eye   
TG: this might possibly be one of the greatest pieces of pastry ever created   
GG: aww! thanks dave! XP   
GG: i made our icons out of fondant! it’s totally baker legit.   
TG: that would be because you are a totally legit baker.   
TG: you probably have all kinds of certificates of commendation from the cupcake king   
TG: because your shit is fucking real   
GG: definitely! >0 i am as real as real gets!   
GG: i’m thinking of delving into the as of yet unexplored land of novelty pizza.   
GG: i figure that carving our icons into pepperonis shouldn’t be too difficult.   
GG: what do you think dave?   
GG: dave?   
GG: dave dave dave dave dave!   
GG: dave you fuckass!! D

Though you rue the day that Karkat taught Jade that word and usually take every opportunity to reprimand her when she uses it, you can’t just then. You are busy being distracted by the sound of the front door opening and closing. Which is ridiculous. There are only two people in this house and you’re the only one sane enough to use the front door. 

You get up out of your chair to go investigate what kind of idiot just walked into your house. There are still plenty of horribly dangerous and cheaply manufactured Asian swords lying around the house, most still in boxes. You take advantage of one of these boxes to arm yourself before you flash step into the living room.

You’re armed and ready, but still find yourself taken completely off guard by what you find there. Standing in front of you, rather than an intruder or misguided prankster, is your Bro. Not only is it your Bro, home for the first time in you can’t remember when. It is your Bro dressed in a polo shirt and khaki pants. He isn’t wearing his shades and he’s got dark rings under his eyes. He looks exhausted. He also looks pissed. You’ve never seen him appear so exposed.

He moves to the small kitchenette with barely a glance in your direction. He grabs a dark glass bottle from the fridge and pops it open with his thumb.

“I got six calls from your school today,” Bro says, his back still turned to you. You remain frozen in place, waiting on the balls of your feet for whatever he will tell you next.

Bro chugs the bottle and tosses it into the trash can before he pull two more out and turns around. He pins you down with his naked eyes, his bare expression somehow much more unnerving than his impenetrable shaded gaze.

“Make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he says shortly and moves off into the living room.

He brushes past you, no flash step, no feinting, nothing. He walks, like a normal person, to his bedroom door, opens it, steps inside, and closes it behind him.

You hear the hiss of carbonation as he opens the top of one of the bottles he took with him. You find it hard to walk calmly back to your room and close the door behind yourself as well.

\-  turntechGodhead [TG] returned from being idle. -

GG: dave? geez what happened to you?   
TG: im not sure   
GG: :?   
TG: i think bro got a job   
GG: :!


	5. Chapter 5

GG: dave i realize this might be a dumb question  
GG: but your brother already has a job right?  
GG: like as a puppet porn web master or something?  
TG: he did  
TG: i mean as far as i know he still does  
TG: but i mean that he has a real fucking job  
TG: with a dress code and everything  
GG: what does he do? :0  
TG: i dunno  
GG: what shift does he work? :/  
TG: no idea  
GG: dave did you guys fight or something?   
TG: no i dont think so  
TG: also your emotes are especially expressive today  
GG: thank you! but for real what happened?  
GG: this is beginning to become quite mysterious  
TG: i agree  
TG: on the mysterious front it is filling all quotas  
GG: he’s been gone a lot lately right?  
TG: yeah  
TG: at first i thought he was just enjoying all the new places to hide  
TG: and kept expecting him to pop out of crawl spaces and drop ceilings to scare the shit out of me  
TG: but i guess that now i know  
TG: he was out at his real job  
GG: dave are you okay?  
TG: yeah im fine  
TG: why do you ask  
GG: you’ve just seemed kind of down lately. : (  
GG: in your own emotionally dead way.  
TG: well i appreciate the concern  
TG: but im seriously fine  
TG: just reeling from all the changes lately i guess  
GG: yeah but!  
GG: you didn’t seem this down, even during the game!  
TG: meh  
GG: don’t ‘meh’ me sir! :P  
TG: i will meh the motherfucking shit out of you if i find it absolutely necessary  
GG: you wouldn’t dare!  
TG: oh i dare  
TG: i dare

Things get more than a little silly after that, so you eventually fake something very important to do and log off of Pesterchum.

It’s still kind of early in the night for you, but you decide to get ready for bed anyway.

You tiptoe through the halls to the bathroom and brush your teeth on edge. You’ve gotten used to the idea of being alone in the house and it’s hard for you to relax with the thought of a strange and unrecognizable Bro lingering behind the thin wooden door to his darkened bedroom.

You finish your toiletries as quietly as possible. No sounds come from Bro’s bedroom.

When you get back to your room, you collapse on your bed and stare despondently at the ceiling. Bro came home at around 5:00 pm. That would mean that he has a regular shift. Something like an actual nine to five job. But, then that wouldn’t explain why you rarely saw him before that day. Unless he was fucking traveling or actively avoiding the house or something. What if he had a woman he was staying with? Was that why he moved himself and you out of Houston? For some petty piece of ass?

It starts to make your chest feel tight when you consider all these possibilities that you wouldn’t give the time of day before. Somehow, you feel like you don’t know your bro anymore.

You let a hand travel up your chest and clench there. You feel tight and nervous all over. You’re convinced you won’t be able to fall asleep. Yet, before you know it, you’re out like a light.


	6. Chapter 6

You forgot that you were worried about what school would be like after beating up your tormentors. Finding out that you might not know the only family you have left half as well as you thought you did does that to a guy. Your head was so full of Bro the night before, that you almost forgot that the morning was going to come.

Yet, come it did, like a drop kick to the face.

Perhaps ironically, you find that school is extremely anticlimactic and that pretty much nothing happens. You notice that a few people say hi and more people talk to you in the lunch line (any improvement over none is more). If you weren’t so stressed out, you probably would have been really happy about it. You can’t bring yourself to be happy. You wish you had your shades.

Your inevitable counseling session lands right on top of Biology, which you are more than happy about. You can ask John to help you with whatever they cover. Leave the biology to the ectobiologist.

You are a little surprised to find that Miss Adler, the counselor, has her office in the library. You enter Miss Adler’s office with as little trepidation as you can manage. You are even more surprised to find that her office was probably a storage closet at one time. The office now has a conference table shoved into it with, at least, six chairs tucked along its edges. There are lots of squeezable and fluffy stress relief items scattered amongst binders and folders full of papers and books.

Miss Adler is a small woman with lots of laugh lines and crow’s feet. Her hair is salt and pepper colored, cut short in a pixie cut and spiked straight up. She has lots of really big gaudy jewelry hanging from her thin wrists and long neck. She’s pretty much one of the most non threatening things you’ve ever seen.

She is writing something in one of her huge folders when you walk in and she immediately puts it to the side, a big smile reaching across her face.

“David! Can I call you David?” she says, reaching out to shake your hand.

You accept the handshake, but don’t actually move your arm, just hold her long fingers in your calloused hand for a moment.

“Dave,” you correct her, taking a chair, making sure to leave a seat between yourself and her. She doesn’t comment on it.

“Dave,” she says out loud, reaching down to the paper in front of her to make a mark. You guess that folder is most likely about you.

“Dave, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Miss Adler,” she says, putting her hands down on the table and obviously focusing her full attention on you, something that makes you nervous without your shades.

You’re tempted to tell her you know who she is, she had to sign your excuse slip and you had to find her office, after all. But, you hold the smart ass comments back. This is serious business.

When you don’t say anything in return, she continues, “I’ve heard you got into a little trouble last week.”

You start to open your mouth and finally explain yourself, finally explain that you didn’t touch the boys who accosted you, though you do take responsibility for their injuries, as you did confuse them into hitting each other. But, you don’t get the chance to form words.

A large girl with dyed orange hair opens the door and pokes her head in. “Miss Adler?” she asks, as she pokes in. “Is it okay if I talk to you?”

“Of course, Lisa, come in!” Miss Adler responds quickly.

Lisa takes the chair across from you and spends the rest of the period talking to Miss Adler about her father, who had passed out piss drunk the night before and threw up on himself. Lisa was upset, because she wasn’t home when it happened, and was afraid her father had drowned in his own vomit. You didn’t talk again until it was time for you to leave.

Actually, even in successive weeks, you very rarely say a word to Miss Adler. But, you do learn a lot about the kids at your school. You learn that Lisa is always getting into trouble for inventive delinquent behavior. She is also terrified of alcohol (of which she is constantly exposed to both by her bad news friends and her dad’s friends), because of how it destroyed her father after her mother left. You learn that one of the linebackers on the football team struggles with extreme anger issues and comes to Miss Adler when he feels he handled it badly or well to receive feedback.

Your personal favorite is Courtney, a tiny little blond freshman who has to deal with sexual advances from her best friend’s father. Courtney, despite the depravity of her situation, is almost like your favorite soap. Her friend is, at the moment, not talking to her after Courtney finally explained why she doesn’t want to come over to her house any more. And, her mom is currently constantly calling and hanging around the guy, because she’s a desperate divorcee. You’ve actually given advice to Courtney and often stop to talk to her in the hall. She’s cute, if dumb. And, you find yourself worrying about her.

Almost a month goes by after your first encounter with the mysterious creature known as your guardian and you still haven’t talked to Bro. You’ve started checking his room before and after school, something you never would have dared to do when Bro still hid swords in the fridge and your iPhone on the roof. You notice that he’s usually asleep in his bed in the morning, but gone in the afternoon. You stayed up one night and noticed that he’s usually home around midnight. You don’t know where he goes on the weekends.

You don’t talk to Miss Adler about your Bro. After listening to your classmates problems, you feel guilty for even complaining about a missing Bro / Dad figure. Mostly, you talk about new friends you’re making and new enemies you have frothing at the mouth.

You hate to tell Miss Adler, because you actually really like her, but probably the best therapy was to meet so many other kids with bigger problems than yours. They make the thought of whining about Bro go stale in your mouth.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon and you’re watching a foreign film in the living room. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen hide nor hair of Bro, though there’s a steady stream of food money left on the kitchen counter so you know he’s been coming and going. Since you haven’t seen him in so long, you’ve felt a lot more comfortable loitering in other parts of the house.

You’ve also become a lot more comfortable rearranging things to your liking. You’ve moved most of your game systems out into the living room, since the living room has the big screen TV. You’ve also moved most of the swords into the corners of the rooms and started to keep huge amounts of apple juice and microwavable pizzas in the fridge.

The futon in the living room is uncomfortable, so you’ve stacked some old pillows under your butt and your back. The movie you’re watching is ‘Goodbye, Lenin’. One of the girls from the German club loaned it to you. It’s still a little weird to think of yourself as having friends in school, but you do.

You’d also joined and made friends with a bunch of kids in the anime club. You have a lot of common interests with them and enjoy discussing your favorite series and webcomics with them, despite their terrifying enthusiasm and fangirl squeals.

You’d also started to attend Tennis practice. You haven’t committed to joining the team yet, but you enjoy the physical exercise and all of the guys on the team are goofy and fun. You don’t strife with Bro anymore and there are no sprites to fight, so you’re glad you have something physical to do.

With your newly rediscovered social life, you find yourself happily exhausted when the weekend rolls around. You know that one of the guys on the team is throwing a party at his house tonight and you’re still not sure if you’re going to go. At the moment, you’re too immersed in the white words scrolling translations across the bottom of the screen to think about it.

It’s at that moment that the front door opens behind you.

You jump about a foot in the air. You’re not used to anybody coming and going in the house.

When you whip around to see who’s walked in (a few kids at school know where you live, but no one’s come over yet), you’re surprised to find Bro standing in the doorway staring at you with the same startled expression you assume you have on your face.

He seems surprised to see you.

Bro hasn’t been home on a weekend in … Well, maybe since before the game started? Since before the two of you moved out to Pasadena, surely.

The two of you share a startled look for a long moment before Bro looks away which is a surprise. You’ve never seen Bro break a stare first.

He quietly closes the door behind him. Much like the last time you saw Bro, he walks over to the fridge and pulls open the door. He pauses for a moment (most likely looking for a beer behind all the bottles of apple juice you’ve heaped in the fridge) before grabbing one and turning around and beginning to walk back the hall to his room.

You experience a moment of blind panic. Will the two of you continue to ignore each other like two ships passing in the night? You hate the idea of remaining this way forever.

Before you can think about what you’re saying, you hear yourself blurt out, “Hey! Wait.”

Bro pauses and turns around to regard you with tired eyes. His usually bright orange eyes have faded to the point that they almost look a regular muddled brown. His posture is somewhat stooped and his whole person screams that he’s haggard and tired.

“Do you …” you start, unsure about what you want to say. “Do you want to watch a movie with me?” you ask, gesturing lamely at the TV that’s still babbling in German behind you.

Bro regards you for a long moment with those dull eyes. He seems to be thinking deeply, pondering something as he stares at your face. The longer your exchange with him goes on, the more disconcerted you become. Bro had always been one for scathingly quick spontaneous action. He had never been so slow and ponderous before.

Finally, Bro nods and slowly comes around the back of the futon to plop down next to you. He grimaces as his back hits the mattress. The mattress of the futon has been worn out since before you can remember. The cloth and cotton of the futon mattress is now nearly as hard as the wooden boards that support it.

Wincing a little in surprise at Bro’s open display of pain and in sympathy for his aches, you pull a pillow from behind your back and hand it over to him. Bro gives you another long sidelong glance before gingerly taking the pillow and arranging it in the small of his back.

The two of you silently watch the movie for a few tense minutes. You’ve reached the most climactic scene of the movie. The mother is now walking barefoot through the streets of East Berlin in her nightgown, the city bustling heedlessly all around her. As she staggers down the street, above her a larger than life statue of Lenin is being lifted through the air and away by a helicopter.

At the sight of the mother’s flabbergasted expression, Bro snorts.

“What the fuck are we watching?” he asks behind a chuckle.

You can feel your whole body relax at the sound.

“Excuse me, but this is a very fine piece of foreign cinema,” you respond.

Bro gives you an arch look.

“What you don’t understand,” you continue, “is that this fine woman had a heart attack earlier in the film and fell into a coma shortly before the Berlin wall fell. She was a devoted communist and, when she woke up, the doctor warned her two children that she mustn’t have any shocks in the next six months or she might die. So, they have to put together this elaborate ruse to protect their mother from knowing that the soviet union dissolved. And, this is the pivotal moment when she realizes that everything her children told her since she woke up has been a lie.”

Bro turns back to the screen with a thoughtful expression on his face. You flinch at the way his face has fallen slack with deep thought. You had hoped he would laugh in your face for taking such a movie so seriously. That he would joke and you would pose and everything would go back to normal. But, the explanation you gave him only seemed to make his expression more beleaguered.

The son of the mother is now running up to her as she kneels in shock on the dirty sidewalk. He is holding her frail looking upper arms in his hands and shaking her, trying to get her to focus on his face. The look of desperation he wears is heartfelt and the shine in his eyes doesn’t look like an actor’s crocodile tears.

You and Bro watch the scene unfold. The movie has a ways to go yet. You know that the run time is longer than what you’re currently at. But, you’re finding it hard to focus on the remainder of what you’re seeing.

“Where have you been lately?” you hear yourself asking quietly. Since when were you going to ask that?

“At work,” Bro answers shortly, not taking his eyes off the screen. He pops the cap off of his beer with his thumbnail like he did before and lifts it to his mouth. His adam’s apple jumps as he swallows it down.

“What do you do?” you ask, mentally smacking yourself in the face. It isn’t like you to ask unnecessary questions. But, a part of you doesn’t feel like they’re unimportant questions at all.

Bro sighs and sinks back into the pillow as much as possible before answering you. “I work at a software company,” he says gruffly. “I massage their data and shit, before they import it into their database,” he mutters into the neck of his beer bottle.

You let that sink in for a moment. A software company doesn’t sound like Bro at all, but he definitely has the experience for it.

“Do they have you work on the weekends?” you ask. But, it sounds more like an accusation, even to your ears.

“Yeah,” Bro answers with a sigh. “They have me travel around and work with different customers.”

You hadn’t expected that.

Then, almost as an afterthought, Bro asks, “Did you have a hard time while I was gone?”

“No,” you answer quickly. You know you answered too quickly when Bro’s eyes stay trained on your carefully schooled face.

After a long awkward moment, Bro turns back to the screen and takes another deep breath.

“How do you like Pasadena?” he asks casually.

Immediately, you want to strangle him. The two of you have been in Pasadena for months now. You went through all kinds of shit at school and with friends and worrying about him. And, this is when he’s interested in knowing how you’re adjusting? You’re suddenly filled with an intense indignant heat from the tips of your toes, to the back of your neck.

When you take too long answering, Bro looks over at you again. Whatever he sees prompts him to explain.

“I thought you might like it better out here,” he says slowly, his gaze glancing away from you. “That it might be easier to get out of Houston. To get away from where … it happened,” Bro says, struggling towards the end.

You bite back a dozen sharp retorts.

“I was fine living in Houston,” you eventually say. You chew on your tongue for a minute. “It’s just …” you struggle for the words. Sometimes you hate the facade that the two of you always put up. It makes it hard to speak about the things that can be so important.

“It was just really hard to start over here,” you rasp. You’re mortified that your voice got a little tangled in the end. You’re grateful that Bro doesn’t let the silence hang for too long.

“I’ll stop working weekends,” Bro says simply, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world.

“What? No! Bro, you don’t have too. I’m fine,” you snap.

“I know,” Bro responds serenely. “But, I haven’t worked on my site in a while. I need to get back to work,” he says, as if he hasn’t been working ridiculous hours since the two of you moved in the first place.

You take a deep breath and it feels like the first unfettered one you’ve taken in a long time.

“That sounds good,” you reply. “I haven’t heard you spin in forever, either,” you mutter, picking up your nearly forgotten apple juice bottle and taking a sip. The taste is surprisingly sweet.

“I still need to unpack my tables,” Bro says wistfully, as if he forgot.

You snort a little at that.

Bro grunts and slowly climbs to his feet. At first, you’re a little disappointed that he is so quick to leave. You have a small niggling doubt that he won’t take off weekends and that it might be months before he sits down like this with you again.

“Thanks for coming home,” you say as he gets up to leave. You say it as nonchalantly as possible, but you’re still afraid that it sounds too needy. Too fragile and breakable. Like you might actually need and want his company.

You can hear Bro pause behind you before leaning over the back of the futon and ruffling your hair.

You squawk ungracefully and try to lean out of his reach.

“Sure thing, little man,” Bro chuckles as he goes to toss his empty beer bottle in the trash and continue back to his room.

You’re glad that you were facing away, as you could feel heat flood your cheeks as Bro left.

\-  turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  tentacleTherapist [TT] -

TG: hey rose   
TT: Why, Dave! Hello.   
TT: How are you today?   
TG: A lot better   
TT: Really? Pray tell, what has changed?   
TG: bro came home   
TG: and we talked and stuff   
TT: Do you mean to tell me that your brother and you had a meaningful conversation about your emotions?   
TG: lets not get carried away   
TG: we talked   
TG: about shit   
TG: about as much as our stunted egos would allow us too   
TG: but im feeling a lot better about everything   
TT: I’m very glad to hear that, Dave.   
TT: You know that all of us have been worried about you since the game.   
TT: We all care about your well-being very much and understand that you can sometimes have difficulty expressing things you find hard for you to deal with.   
TG: well gee   
TG: were all just one big happy family arent we?   
TT: I’m afraid you’ve hit the nail on the head, Dave.


End file.
